Friday, February 02, 2007

Helpful sibling syndrome

There is a problem in being a caregiver that many do not quite realize before it is too late. I suppose that you could call it the 'helpful sibling syndrome'.

This is the problem faced by caregivers when their siblings want to help out, but only as much as it will make the sibling feel good and like they are being a part of the whole overall caregiver role. It is the one that takes the care recipient out and without telling you, indeed hiding it from you, gives them things that are known to be off their diet or potentially injurious to their health. The one that sneaks cigarettes to the care recipient that had stopped smoking, that gives grape fruit juice to the one who's medications say "no grapefruit juice with this medication", the helpful goody goody that wants to dote on the care recipient and in doing so undermines the health of that person without understanding what they are doing that is so wrong.

How do you prevent such a thing occurring? I don't know. I just had a fight with one of my sisters over my father having wanted to stop smoking and my sister taking him into an environment where he is exposed to smoking and undoing all my dad's work to stop - she does not see where it is harmful, but then she had never listened to him choke and wondered if he was about to die from choking because of a dislodged clot or something else the doctors had warned about.

It just leaves me wanting to scream, and at the same time what can be done aside from refusing her assistance in caring for our dad? I guess the only thing I can do is leave it to my mom to talk it over with her and explain to her why it's not being helpful what she is doing and hope that my sister listens and understands.

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